|
Written by: Major, M.C.
Tran Xuan Dung
Just after midnight on
the eve of the lunar New Year,
Sounds of firearms were heard
in nearby Nha Trang.
The civilians wondered what
was happening
In the direction of the Naval
Training School.
Explosions also occurred in
Ban Me Thuot.
Then in Kon Tum, followed by
Hoi An,
Pleiku, Da Nang, Qui Nhon.
And the blood in the
civilian homes coloured the green New Year cakes red.
Though it was Tet, the
festive mood was no more.
Due to the continuous shooting
by the Viet Cong.
And over by the yellow blossom
tree,A
now handless girl wept heartachingly.
The Viet Cong had gathered
secretly, preparing their attack.
They infiltrated four tactical
zones.
They first assaulted in the second corps
And the following day,
continued attacking the rest of South Vietnam.
The Viet Cong reached
the capital: Saigon.
They had three targets in
mind:
The national radio station, the presidential palace
And the US embassy.
Beginning with their
firearms,
They then launched B40
rockets.
The palace rear gates were
soon destroyed;
Armed with machine guns our
guards responded...
Along Nguyen Du Street, they
dashed from tree to tree.
Their blood wetted the tree
trunks
And their enemy bodies
Littered the street, and their
weapons lay scattered.
A car approached the US
embassy,
Its occupants fired at the
walls,
In the side wall a hole soon gaped,
Through which the enemy tried
to charge.
Five US Marines were standing
guard,
And fired to defend, to repel.
The Viet Cong fell, one by
one.
Calm was restored after six hours.
Masquerading in combat police
uniforms,
They numbered an entire
truckload.
They aimed to occupy
The national radio
broadcasting station.
A radio technician was bold
And refused to air the
Communists' programs.
Not knowing how to broadcast
it themselves,
They vented their frustration
on the equipment.
In camouflaged fatigues
The Airbourne troops
arrived
To change the situation
And soon the invaders'
corpses lay scattered in the station.
In Tan Son Nhut Airport,
The enemy approached
three battalions at a time.
Attacking simultaneously from
East, West and North
Their rockets commencing the
attack.
Flares suspended in the sky
brightened the spring night,
The airport's minefields could
not halt their advance.
Control of the airport
teetered
For the outposts were lost and
the enemy continued their advance.
Two Airbourne Companies of the
eighth battalion,
Demonstrating their well known
bravery,
Stopped the enemy advance,
fighting well into daybreak.
The Viet Cong withdrew and hid
in a nearby textile factory.
Control of the airport now
restored,
Helicopters and fighters soon
took off
To search and destroy.
The target? The
textile factory.
Different places in the
capital
The Viet Cong tried to occupy.
They invaded the Joint
General Staff Headquarters.
One building was lost, the
situation was precarious.
The Viet Cong outnumbered the
guards,
And attacked from all sides.
The Marine Task Force
B from Cai Lay
Was airlifted back to save
Headquarters.
The “Sea Tigers” were
tenacious fighters
And reversed the situation
within hours.
The NVA's regiment “101”
Withdrew towards the
Binh Loi bridge.
Whilst in Go Vap it just so
happened
That the Artillery
headquarters was invaded by the enemy.
But the artillery men removed
all essential parts,
So the Viet Cong could not use
our canons.
Their attack on the naval base
did not meet with success,
They failed to seize the boats
moored in the deep,
And their reinforcements could
not cross the river.
Defeated, they knew not where
to run.
In many districts the enemy
had penetrated deeply.
They searched civilian homes
To kill the relatives
of men in uniform
And to shoot all government
officials.
In Phu Tho, Racecourse, Bay
Hien junction
There was fighting everywhere.
In Minh Mang district,
In Cholon, at police stations,
And in Gia Dinh the
trouble lasted for many days.
At Binh Loi bridge the
fighting continued,
Marines were stationed to
block both ends.
Two sweltering nights then
ensued.
Finally the Marine Task Force
B humbled the Viet Cong.
In Tran Hung Dao Street, black
smoke darkened the sky,
For the Viet Cong had burnt
civilian homes and their innocent owners too.
The air reeked of the
burning smell of human flesh.
As the Marines and police
fought back, the enemy moved into the alleyways.
A Viet Cong was
caught, and the people were pleased,
Their pity was only for those
just killed by him.
His cruelty to innocent
civilians made General Loan's blood boil
And he took out his gun to
mete out justice.
The Viet Cong's body was flung
backwards,
Blood spurted forth from the
deadly wound.
All Viet Cong deserve such a
death
And first of all, Ho Chi Minh.
New Year's in the Imperial
City,
Tinh Tam lake was blanketted in fog.
At three in the morning enemy
artillery hammered,
Their 122mm rockets thundered.
The Viet Cong attacked
the Perfume River's north bank,
Then they advanced to the west
gate of the citadel.
Their battalions assaulted
simultaneously,
And managed to cross its thick
walls.
The “Black Panthers” were waiting for them
At the east end of the
airstrip.
One of the Viet Cong
Battalions were repelled,
And they retreated in the
direction of some houses.
As for the other Viet Cong
battalion,
They were occupying a camp
Before being dislodged
by the “Black Panthers”
Who now added this to their
long list of victories.
Both banks of the Perfume
River were in danger,
The city was in enemy claws.
Three regular NVA
regiments
Fanned out about the citadel
and its environs.
The Viet Cong drove on towards
the Imperial Palace,
Which they easily occupied.
Stranded and
outnumbered, the Ist Infantry Division Headquarters
Hung in and braved all
enemy fire.
It was impossible to imagine
that it was actually Tet,
Given the amount of suffering
to which these city dwellers were subjected.
City streets were transformed
into battle grounds,
And white rice cakes were a
sticky blood red.
The natives of Hue bore tragic
visages,
And one morning, as the heavy
fog lifted,
They saw the sight of the Viet
Congs' flag adorned with yellow star
Flying above the citadel: it
was the harbinger of death.
Around the citadel was a moat,
Inside it, numerous
walls,
Interlacing paths and alley ways,
The palace itself, its
gardens, and those of the inhabitants.
All this was ideal for hidden
troops,
A perfect labyrinthine
complexity.
Meanwhile the enemy built
trenches and bunkers,
Meanwhile they had not been
able to quash the 1st Infantry Division.
The Viet Cong tried to control
the citizens.
They opened the prisons,
releasing some thousands of criminals.
They persuaded military and
government officials to surrender.
Their voices reverberated from
megaphones.
The NVA searched each house
thoroughly
And shot innumerable
inhabitants on the spot.
Those suspected were led away
to be tortured,
Death rained down on every
household.
The fighting was ceaseless,
The 3rd regiment was
called in to reinforce.
The situation was dangerous,
but the morale of the infantrymen remained strong
Meanwhile, the 1st
Infantry Division still tried to hold out.
The communists forced the
civilians to participate
In all their political
propaganda,
Like attending meetings and
raising communists banners,
And spying on each other.
Not all civilians
reported to the communists,
Anxious for their destiny,
they hid within their homes.
Elderly women were felled by
bullets,
Rats nibbled at the swollen
corpses of babies.
After controlling Hue for five
days
They entered Phu Cam cathedral.
Some hundred Catholics were
captured
Until now, where they are
buried remains unknown.
People were randomly killed
They stabbed, and
shot, and decapitated.
Petrified, a woman hid under a
staircase
Nursing a dead baby in her
arms.
More than half of the Imperial City was brought to its knees,
The ARVN tried to
liberate district by district.
The allied forces helped in
the southern half,
And all under the depressing
drizzly weather.
Schools and homes were
shelled,
Flying bullets, and screeching
artillery shells rained down.
Torn flesh, bodies flung high,
Stones and bricks
fell, bones were crushed.
The 1st Infantry Division was
finally reinforced,
And the tide turned in the
favour of the ARVN.
Three Airbourne Battalions:
the 2nd, the 7th, and the 9th
Were deployed, and all fought
fiercely.
Military corpsmen, aided and
medevacuated,
The wounded soldiers gave each
other priority in being treated.
All wounds were equally
painful, they reasoned,
It was all in the name of
serving the nation.
The Imperial Palace long since
invaded
Now housed NVA field
headquarters.
As it was surrounded by thick
strong walls
It posed quite a challenge for
the ARVN.
As the dreadful days passed,
Perfume River
languished and lost her beauty.
As the southern bank slowly
recovered
Displaced people searched for
their mothers, mothers looked for their children
The emaciated
population - dispirited souls,
Dug and pushed aside bricks
and rubble to find family
But only found hair glued fast
by blood to scalps and
Bodies so far decomposed, the
faces were unrecognisable.
Hoards of rats - overjoyed,
ran and
Cried shrilly as they nibbled
on the human flesh and bones.
Here and there skulls lay
shattered against the walls,
And a New Year banner still
dangled from the roof.
Meanwhile, Marine Task Force
“A”
Battled in close combat within the citadel.
In “tiger-striped” uniforms
they stormed,
The flagpole would before long
fly another flag.
And then an encouraging piece
of news for our fighters:
The NVA field commander had
been killed
And with him had died the
communists' fighting spirit,
And sooner or later the rest
of the NVA too would be no longer.
About 100,000 civilians were
homeless,
They lived in the ruins of
their homes,
Schools and cathedrals were
swamped with refugees,
There were no blankets, no
rice, but destitution was in abundance.
Ladderless, the Marines still
tried to recover the citadel,
Trying to reach the ramparts,
they stood on each other's shoulders,
Under the rain of enemy fire,
their battlecries reverberated.
The flagpole was heroically
recaptured.
Enemy bodies, torn and a
slippery red lay like litter,
A melange of skin, bones,
earth and bricks.
The survivors fled to Van
Thanh,
In the now damaged city of Hue, the noise of firearms finally
ceased.
Brigadier General Ngo Quang
Truong had been awaiting the moment
To demand that his men raise
the flag,
The “Sea Tigers” were
surprised by such an inappropriate request,
But to bicker seemed so
trivial, and the Brigadier's will was done.
Flinging their weapons high,
the fighters shouted for joy,
The gunsmoke had not yet
cleared,
But the communist flag had
already been lowered
To be torn and trampled
underfoot.
Everyone waited with baited
breath for that moment
When the South Vietnamese flag
was jubilantly raised.
Its brilliant yellow hue
flapped in the breeze,
The soldiers cheered, the
civilians shouted in happiness.
But tears still streamed...
People looking
hopelessly for family still,
Discovering instead the mass
graves
Of those massacred by the NVA.
An elderly woman stood by the
grave - her legs buckled
When she caught sight of her
child as the bodies were unearthed.
Someone leapt in, catching
sight of something familiar.
Another clasped the shoe of a
loved one and wept.
The bodies lay, indifferent to
the cries and shouts
They lay in different
positions; but they had all met with the same fate.
Relatives tried to
identify them,
Some succeeded, others
ironically not so “lucky”.
6,000 innocents slaughtered
Some lay crumpled,
others fully extended.
One corpse lay legless,
Others boasted crushed
skulls, swollen abdomens full of maggots.
5,000 of the enemy had been
killed,
But somehow the butchering of
innocent civilians overshadowed this fact.
But in the eyes of the
civilians, before their anger be somewhat alloyed,
Revenge should be
visited upon the enemy at least ten-fold.?
The ARVN also suffered losses
for the nation,
400 had laid down their lives,
1,800 had been
wounded,
To save the civilians, to gain
victory.
In the Mau Than Offensive,
The enemy had attacked
the four tactical zones in the same way,
Commencing first by shelling
with artillery,
They backed this up with the
advance of their regular and sapper units.
A hundred thousand homes
destroyed,
41 cities attacked,
Ten of them severely
damaged,
Civilian deaths too high...
The grief unfolded for
the
14,000 civilians killed,
And for the heartbreaking
condition of the wounded,
Who numbered a painful 25,000
email
bixitrum@yahoo.com
|
|
